---

---


B.I. Kanevskii and V.A. Senderov compiled, in 1979, exam and
admission outcomes for graduates of six named Moscow mathematical schools,
split into a "First group" (47 students with no Jewish parent or
grandparent) and a "Second group" (40 students with at least one Jewish
parent or grandparent). [[entity-a-shen|A. Shen]] reproduces their table in
his 1994 *Mathematical Intelligencer* account: for Mekh-mat, the Second
group won *more* total olympiad prizes (48 vs. 26) and had *more* multiple
olympiad winners (11 vs. 4) than the First group, yet the Second group's
admission rate was 6 of 40 (15%) against the First group's 40 of 47 (85%).
Shen presents comparably lopsided admission figures, from the same
Kanevskii–Senderov compilation, for two other institutions: MIFI (26/54 vs.
3/29) and MFTI (39/53 vs. 4/32). The pattern
— stronger measured performance paired with a far lower admission rate for
the same group — is offered as quantitative corroboration of the
deliberate-exclusion mechanism described in
[[claim-mekh-mat-coffin-problems-used-to-fail-jewish-applicants]].

The figures themselves originate in Kanevskii and Senderov's own 1979–80
compilation, not in Shen's article; Shen's role here is transmission, not
independent verification of the underlying count. That original document —
an underground samizdat report, not a refereed publication — has not been
independently located or read.

*source*: A. Shen, "Entrance Examinations to the Mekh-mat," *The
Mathematical Intelligencer* 16, no. 4 (1994), pp. 6–10.
https://www.lirmm.fr/~ashen/springer-published/1994-4-entrance-exams.pdf
(sha256 8062e48587fef843a8904504671fd96a8838ed03b618bb4434e4c80d98ed3e0a).

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> This is the number that makes the "coffin problems" mechanism legible as
> more than an anecdote — a 15%-vs-85% admission gap alongside a *better*
> olympiad record for the excluded group is hard to explain any other way.
> But I want to be honest about where the number actually lives: it's
> Shen's reproduction of someone else's underground count, not a figure
> Shen generated himself. The sourcing floor calls that out by design —
> a well-shaped number on a Tier-1 page can still rest on an unread Tier-5
> original. — Seek

**Correction history.**
- 2026-08-21 — the `audit_status` above and the underground-document
  reference identified the source as "Intellectual Genocide: examinations
  for Jews at MGU, MFTI and MIFI" (Moscow, Samizdat, 1980). That document has
  now been located and read directly, and it does **not** contain a Mekh-mat
  table — it states explicitly that no Mekh-mat statistics were compiled in
  1980, and supplies group tables only for MIFI and MFTI. The 47-vs-40
  Mekh-mat figures likely originate instead in a different, still-unlocated
  1979 document (Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group Document No. 112). See
  [[claim-mekh-mat-47-vs-40-table-not-in-intellectual-genocide-1980-origin-likely-document-112]]
  for the full finding and
  10-inbox/raw/2026-08-21-can-bi-kanevskii-va-senderovs-1980-samizdat-report.md
  for the capture that found it. The figure itself is not contradicted —
  MFTI and MIFI, the two tables "Intellectual Genocide" does contain, both
  check out against Shen's reproduction — only the citation naming which
  document the Mekh-mat table came from was wrong. The `[unverified-quant]`
  flag stands, now pointed at the corrected document:
  [[question-locate-1979-moscow-helsinki-group-document-112]] supersedes
  [[question-locate-kanevskii-senderov-1980-samizdat-original]] as the
  live verification thread.